Like father like son.



In the aftermath of Gulf War I, President George Bush Sr. had a 90% approval rating, higher even than George Washington himself. He then plummeted from the highest pinnacle to the abyss, losing to Bill Clinton.



Sadly, history is repeating itself. After 9/11, George W. Bush Jr. rallied the nation, inspiring Democrats and Republican alike with his resolute response to the absolute evil of suicide murder. He led the country from one impressive triumph to the next in Afghanistan and in Iraq. He was politically untouchable and his reelection was supposed to be a shoo-in.



How the mighty have fallen. Despite amassing the largest war chest in political history, he is running neck to neck with John Kerry, one of the most radical left-wing members of the Senate, who makes Ted Kennedy look conservative by comparison. Kerry's statement comparing the war against terrorism to the drug war betrays a total lack of understanding of what America is up against. If the terrorists got a hold of nuclear weapons on 9/11 and had the ability to destroy not 3,000 lives, but three million lives by exploding a bomb in New York City, they would have gladly done so and praised Allah with the same joy, jubilation and glee with which they saw off heads on a daily basis. John Kerry is one of the only politicians in the country who pines for and laments the administration's neglect of the Road Map. He promises to bring back President Clinton's tested and failed Middle Eastern team.



How did President Bush reach such a nadir that he may actually lose the election to John Kerry?



The only logical explanation I have (if you have a better explanation, I would love to hear it) is that the president's primary claim to fame is his war against terrorism. Although to the president's credit, we haven't had a single attack here in the USA in three years, the truth is that the war against terrorism is not going so well.



It all started going downhill when the president, following in his father's footsteps, pressured Israel in the aftermath of his miraculous success in Iraq in Gulf War II.



President Bush became the first American president to advocate a Palestinian State. He used the momentum of the war to wear down Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's resistance, forcing him to agree to the Road Map, which promises a Palestinian State.



Terrorism is one big happy family. You can't spend 100 billion dollars taking out one terrorist state in the Middle East in order to establish another one. Ideas have consequences. The Road Map only served the purpose of emboldening Terrorism International, by proving that America doesn't really get it, that ultimately we are not serious about truly defeating terrorism. The president's latest address to the UN, wherein he equated the homicide bombings with Israel's settlement enterprise, demonstrates that he has become infected with the moral equivalency virus.



If the president had listened to the sagacious advice of his Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who wondered aloud why Israel has to return territories that it captured fair and square in a war of aggression intended to liquidate it, I dare say that the president's second term would have been a cinch. Instead, to our great chagrin, the president followed the terrible advice of his myopic advisers who foolishly advocated a Palestinian State, quickly silencing Mr. Rumsfeld. They are responsible for jeopardizing both the war against terror, and the president's chance for reelection.



The Road Map was an act of political suicide, a guaranteed road map to political oblivion. It is no coincidence that ever since the president proclaimed his support for a Palestinian State, the war against terrorism tragically blew up in America's face. The president's magic touch quickly disappeared. Today, the cancer of terrorism has spread and has metastasized out of control, and Al-Qaeda may, in a few days, win its biggest victory yet; they may succeed in bringing about a regime change in the USA.



From a spiritual perspective, when the president publicly announced that the Holy Land must be divided, thereby defying the President of Presidents, the creator of Heaven and Earth and the G-d of Israel, he may have forfeited the presidency. His whole presidency was a miracle. After 9/11, even Democrats publicly admitted that we have to thank G-d that Bush and Cheney are in office. Democrats and Republicans alike shuddered to think how a Gore-Lieberman administration would have responded to 9/11. Yasser Arafat surely would have been piling up frequent flier miles from his trips to the White House.



Prime Minister Ariel Sharon



If the president loses on Election Day, the lion's share of credit will go to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. No one did more damage to the global war against terror or to the president's chances for reelection than Ariel Sharon. Israel under the prime minister's stewardship has deserted the front lines of the total and uncompromising war against terror.



Jews are a holy people and Israel is a holy land because it engenders holy values, the holiest of which is the absolute sanctity of life. There is one overriding principle in Judaism that in matters of life and death, there can be no compromise, nor any political or diplomatic considerations. Jewish law (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 329:6) states unequivocally that when life is in danger, even a single life, there can be no political considerations. The country must mobilize, go to war, uproot and stamp out the threat at its source.



As long as Israel followed this vital principle, it was the envy of the world. When it came to matters of life and death, Israel couldn't care less about public opinion - as in 1967, in Entebbe or in 1981 when Israel stubbornly defied America and the entire world and took out Iraq's nuclear reactor. Israel was the world's leader in the war against terror, dealing decisive blow after decisive blow against Terrorism International. The Jew was chosen to lead the world, and Israel delivered.



For the first time in our 3,800 year history, beginning with the Oslo accords and now with the unilateral disengagement, life and death decisions have become infected with politics. Every decision by the government is colored with diplomatic and political calculations. Consequently, Israel has lost the world's respect and has become instead the universal punching bag of the media and of the intellectual elite.



The terrorists have declared war against life itself. Life is sacred, a divine gift from the Almighty. Every fiber of our being and every bone in our body screams out in protest against the brazen toying with life by the suicide bombers around the world and in Israel, who violently assault the very foundations of existence itself.



Isn't the sole principle that differentiates us from the terrorists that for them life is expendable, only a means to an end, while to us life is sacred as an end in itself, and nothing could justify the risking of a single innocent life. We will triumph over terrorism only when we have the same moral clarity to defend G-d's desire for life, as they have clarity about their mission to destroy G-d's gift of life.



Jews must lead the way in the battle against terrorism. Judaism is absolutely fanatical about life; Jews are extremists when it comes to life. We are a holy people because life is holy to us. For 3,800 years, it has been inculcated into every Jewish child that saving one life is the equivalent of saving the entire world. A Jew must violate all of the 613 mitzvot (with three notable exceptions: idolatry; adultery; and murder) in order to save a single life. In every Jewish home, whether right-wing or left-wing, they inculcate into their children a love for life. Israel is the only army in the world that never leaves a wounded soldier behind and every time a life is lost, the entire country mourns. Hundreds of Jewish communities around the world have Hatzolah groups, trained paramedic volunteers who are on call 24 hours a day for any emergency, just in order to save lives.



Jews must lead the way in the battle against the absolute evil of terrorism. We are a people of spirit and this war will only be won through spirited action taken by leaders who have the moral courage and the backbone not to compromise, not to blink, to look evil in the eye and to mercilessly eradicate the terrorist cancer.



In the greatest landslide in Israel's history, the people voted for the Sharon they once knew, loved and respected. It turns out that while they voted for Churchill, they ended up instead with Chamberlain. His parting legacy that he would like to bequeath Israel with is a full-blown terrorist entity in Gaza, on Israel' s doorstep.



It's time to tell the truth that a "Palestinian State" will never happen, not in G-d's lifetime. No one is doing the Arabs any favors by cruelly fueling false hopes that will only lead to frustration and greater disillusionment. In 1948, despite the entire world being against them, Israel miraculously succeeded in gaining independence. The Arabs, however, despite the whole world, including Israel, supporting and bankrolling them to the tune of billions of dollars, have failed miserably. Many prime ministers and presidents who have exerted Herculean efforts to expel Jews and to establish a Palestinian State came and went, many of them in disgrace, while Israel remains intact.



King David (Psalms 121:4) writes: "The guardian of Israel neither sleeps nor slumbers." Rest assured that not a single Jew will be uprooted and that the only one who will be disengaged is the prime minister from his office.



Why is it that when a child requests a candy from his parents and they respond that it's too expensive or it's not healthy, the child will continue to nudge and nudge until his parents relent. The moment, however, the parents say, "I'm sorry, son, you can't have it because it's not kosher," all conversation ends and the child immediately stops crying. Because the child know that kosher is simply not negotiable and that no amount of crying will budge his parents one iota. When the Jewish people will tell the world that Israel is not negotiable - not today, not in a thousand years, not an inch, not a half an inch - because it simply is not ours to give away, then all the relentless pressure on Israel will subside and cease.



Israel is our ancestral homeland, chosen by the creator of heaven and earth as His Holy Land and He has given it as an eternal inheritance to every Jew that has ever lived and that will ever live. The Jews alive today are merely the trustees. What about the three million Arabs in Israel? They are more than welcome to stay as our guests.



The prime minister keeps talking about the need to secure Israel through his political connections with the White House. He argues that Israel has no choice but to compromise, to be pragmatic. If only the prime minister was so loyal, faithful and trusting in the G-d of Israel, in his Torah and in Judaism's cardinal principle never to color life and death decisions with politics, then Israel by now would have defeated the enemy, America would be winning in its war against terrorism, and President Bush would have been polishing his inauguration speech in the greatest landslide in American history.